


jack of spades

by afearsomecritter (jsaer)



Series: five-card draw [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series), UnDeadwood (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Groundhog Day Loop, Time Travel, UnDeadwood Mini-series (Critical Role)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21551719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jsaer/pseuds/afearsomecritter
Summary: “Give unto me your souls, and I will grant you power,” the thing says and Matthew has the strangest sense of deja vu.
Series: five-card draw [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554250
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	jack of spades

**Author's Note:**

> because everyone was talking about groundhog day loops, I started writing and -gestures below-

\------------

“Give unto me your souls, and I will grant you power,” the thing says and Matthew has the strangest sense of déjà vu. 

(he remembers at different times, each go round, the earliest so far mid speech to the crowd around him, stumbling over words that should be only newly tripping off his tongue instead of well worn)

“I already gave it?” Matthew replies, confused. The thing pauses, and he feels its attention swing to him, heavy like the air before a lighting strike. 

“So you have,” it says, and he feels the hole in his chest in full for the first time (again). “Very well,” and he hears the clatter of dice. That should've been cards shuffling, he thinks, and then he is dreaming and running and bleeding and the moon is high. 

-

(“-is there anything about you that we don’t know, as a man of the cloth?” yes, he wants to say)

He isn’t reckless with the magic, really. It’s just hard to remember not to be. Hold hot metal often enough and you start to forget how much it used to hurt to burn. Clayton is cautious as hell every time, eyes narrow and wary. Matthew finds himself poking him to use the magic, curious despite all sense to see what he’d look like, fire blooming from his hands.

(matthew calls him amos by accident once, before he remembers, and has to do some quick talking to keep from getting shot)

-

He’s not sure why the Dealer allows this, again and again. It already has him for everything he’s worth, there’s no reason to keep letting him try. He’s grateful, though.

(it is one thing to bet a soul, over and over, it is another to bargain for it, precious poker chip that it is, it is quite another to be gifted it, again and again. matthew never finds out that it was only meant to be once)

-

The third time he remembers when he’s setting up the grave marker for Amos Kinsley and he just stops for a while, standing still among the dead. He remembers the strange, dull surprise that had followed him to the duel, watching two would have been friends shoot each other. Matthew had died in the Gem Saloon, last time, trying to stop them. The first time none of them had left the saloon.

“This is shit timing,” he tells the empty air, and hears a laugh like fluttering cards.

(he never knows what causes the loops to reset, and never asks)

-

He starts to push, after that, for earlier and earlier. He starts to wake up the first night he arrived in Deadwood, church still heavy with the scent of smoke. He starts to wake up with blood dripping from his ears and nose. 

He digs up Cynthia Whitlock for the first time after that, bare days after she’s buried, in the dead of night. Matthew is gentle as he can be, severing her head from her neck and filling back in the earth. Arabella is pissed as all hell but not having her have to shoot her sister feels worth it.

Until she dies fighting Wild Bill Hitcock instead.

(he lets her rise, after that)

-

Matthew finds himself praying with a deck of cards, getting something like answers through chance and paper and ink. The Jack of Spades cuts his finger, and he leaves the dark stain on the corner alone. He gets wary looks from the others once they meet the Dealer (again), absently laying out a game of solitaire in the Gem Saloon. 

(the cards start to simply exist in his pocket with soft worn edges when he wakes in a smoky church with blood on his face)

-

He doesn’t try to live each loop exactly the same, that way looms madness like mountains. Routine is something different, steadying some days, like when he’s cleaning his friends for burial. 

He’s known these people for the same handful of weeks for what must be months now, and he’s met and buried them all more than once. Familiarity breeds a strange sort of friendliness in him, one he’s pleased to see reflected in them, for all their wary eyes and hearts. 

(he misses when one by one they start to watch him back)

-

“Why do I know you?” Clayton hisses, gun digging into the hinge of Matthew’s jaw. Matthew stares back, eyes wide with shock and no trace of fear of the death kissing his neck.

“You remember?” Matthew asks, hope like ash in his chest. 

Silence. Matthew’s pulse flutters against the muzzle of the gun and then it’s drawn away.

“Not a dream, then.”

(wild bill gets a lucky shot this time)

-

Reverend Mason wakes up in a church smelling of smoke. Two days later a gunslinger grabs his arm in an iron grip, and Matthew smiles.

(jack. king. ace. queen. joker.) 

-

You can’t bet or bargain with something that isn’t yours. 

“My soul is yours,” he says again and again, “Please.”

You can pray, though.

\----------


End file.
